


CENTENNIAL MAN: The Legacy of Captain America on the Eve of his Hundredth

by Spacedog



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Daily Bugle, M/M, Museums, News Media, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, POV First Person, media fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 10:51:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15169109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacedog/pseuds/Spacedog
Summary: In a Daily Bugle Exclusive, senior reporter Harold H. Harold spends time with Captain Steve Rogers in advance of the opening of the upcoming Brooklyn Museum exhibit,Favorite Son: Steve Rogers in Brooklyn, 1918-2012.or: how, at one-hundred, steve rogers took control of his own story.





	CENTENNIAL MAN: The Legacy of Captain America on the Eve of his Hundredth

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Steve Rogers at 100: Celebrating Captain America on Film](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1599293) by [eleveninches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleveninches/pseuds/eleveninches), [febricant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/febricant/pseuds/febricant), [hellotailor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellotailor/pseuds/hellotailor), [M_Leigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Leigh/pseuds/M_Leigh), [neenya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neenya/pseuds/neenya), [tigrrmilk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigrrmilk/pseuds/tigrrmilk). 



> this has been sitting in my drafts for a little bit under a year, forgotten, until two days ago when i remembered it was going to be steve's 100th. so, here you go, everybody: a media fic, inspired by the very very excellent steve rogers at 100 for the big day. i have a feeling it won't come close to the wonder that is steve rogers at 100, but i hope that i get somewhere in the same universe. this fic is unbeta'd, straight from me to you.

 

****

**\---**

**CENTENNIAL MAN: Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, and the Legacy of Captain America on the Eve of his Hundredth**

By **HAROLD H. HAROLD** – JULY 4, 2018

\---

“Hope you’re not squeamish,” Captain America says to me. It’s the first thing out of his mouth as he invites me into his cozy brownstone. In the doorway, he’s dressed casually: a plain white t-shirt, blue jeans, and a pair of cozy-looking slippers. He has a shaker bottle in his hand, half-drained of a late-morning protein shake. Standing there, Rogers doesn’t look like he’s approaching a hundred. He looks like your younger brother, just out of grad school, just moved in with his boyfriend. The difference between the man and the modern myth is a stark one.

“Why do you say that?” I ask him. We shake hands, and he leads me inside. His apartment is cozy, but still only half-unpacked. Empty, broken-down cardboard boxes are stacked right next to the door, their fully-packed counterparts by their side. There are framed sketches—Rogers’ own work, no doubt—leaning against almost every surface, waiting to be hung up.

He tells me, in a distinctly Brooklyn brogue, about the effects of the serum, about supersoldier metabolisms, about the truly ludicrous amount of food he has to take in to keep from passing out. For all us mere mortals, it sounds like a fantasy: eat as much as you want, but still maintain a body that’s been the subject of seven decades of sexual awakenings. For Rogers, he talks about it like one talks about giving up ice cream after discovering a sudden lactose intolerance.  

“It’s kind of a pain,” he says, before devouring half a sandwich in one bite. He chases it by draining what remains of his protein shake. If I were squeamish, that might have done it. Rogers smiles at me, a little bit cocky, and old stories from Howling Commandos biographies come to mind: was he going to spend the rest of the day trying to use his superhuman metabolism to push me to the very edge of my tolerance? Then again, we would be meeting one James “Bucky” Barnes, known—at least to some scholars—as Rogers’ surrogate impulse control. I smile back at him, trying not to look nervous. As he finishes up his sandwich, it’s impossible to determine what the rest of the day will look like, but despite my trepidation, I find myself curious to watch it play out.  

\---

When I first pitched this day-long interview to Rogers’ team, I didn’t expect to get a phone call back. I didn’t expect it to be from Rogers himself, either. That was just the first in a series of surprises.  

Steven Grant Rogers was born on July 4th, 1918 to Irish immigrants, Joseph and Sarah Rogers. We all know how it goes. We all _think_ we know how it goes. Steve Rogers, a few days short of his centennial, at the time of this interview, doesn’t see it the same way. Maybe that’s why he agreed to work with the Brooklyn Museum on _Favorite Son: Steve Rogers in Brooklyn, 1918-2012_. Maybe that, too, is why he agreed to let me follow him around as he and Barnes took one last-minute look at the exhibit before opening day.

As we walk from his brownstone to the Brooklyn Museum, Rogers tells me about the process of moving back to his hometown. Brooklyn has changed quite substantially from the city of Rogers’ youth, but like all good Brooklynites, Rogers knows how to roll with the punches. He disparages the skyrocketing cost of living and stagnant wages—imagine for a second, as I did, Steve Rogers, all six-foot-two and two-hundred-forty pounds of him, sitting through a community board meeting with rapt attention—and sings all of the borough’s praises in the same breath. Given his professional relationship with Tony Stark, I can’t help but ask him if he’d ever considered living in Avengers Tower.  

Rogers laughs at that. “That eyesore? Pal, I wouldn’t move there if you paid me.”

And unexpected as Rogers’ response is, I can’t help but laugh at it, too.

The rest of the walk is short, and not as loaded with Rogers’ fiery insights about New York City in the twenty-first century, but nonetheless enlightening. I learn that he binges tiny kitchen videos on YouTube on a regular basis, he’s a fan of the triple ginger-snaps from Trader Joe’s, and he’s gotten into the habit of listening to audiobooks while he’s running (he’s currently listening to _An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States,_ by the way). More and more, it hits me how _young_ Steve Rogers is: his habits, interests, and politics are far more in line with people born in 1988 than 1948, despite how the image of Captain America was used during the height of Cold War conservatism.  

As we approach the Brooklyn Museum, teeming with visitors even on this Monday morning, Rogers stops me.  

“Hang on, before we go inside,” he says, and he veers off, making a beeline towards one of the food carts perennially parked outside the Brooklyn Museum. He purchases a hot dog, then, looking like he’d just been reminded to remember his manners, asks if I want one. Usually, I would say no, but as the saying goes, when in Brooklyn, do as Captain America tells you. Casting all my dispersions aside, I agree, and the grin that he gives me is almost worth the sodium headache I know awaits me later in the day.  

“Cheers,” he says, as he hands me my hot dog. He goes on to devour his own in three bites.  

\---

James “Bucky” Barnes is already in the museum, waiting for us next to a cardboard standee of Rogers in the gaudy UFO uniform, when we make our way inside. Rogers mutters something unsuitable for print when he sees it. I have no doubt, in that moment, that Rogers’ reaction is precisely why Barnes chose to meet us next to it. He’s dressed in his signature all-black, looking equal parts intimidating and ineffably cool in a black leather jacket and black jeans. Think James Dean, but built like a linebacker. There’s not a bead of sweat on him, even in the July heat.

Despite his colorful, filthy language just minutes before, Rogers lights up once he gets within proximity of Barnes, pulling him into a tight hug. The close relationship between Rogers and Barnes is nothing new, but this felt substantially different from what I’d been expecting. What I’d prepared for was war buddies, maybe matured frat bros, if they acted their age. What I got was something more than that, something more substantial, something closer to peering into their souls. Their hug alone feels so close, so intimate, that I almost get the feeling that I shouldn’t be there. I feel like a voyeur.

When they pull away, they seem to remember they’re not the only two people in the world. As Barnes goes to shake my hand, Rogers is still looking at him like he’s the sun and the stars.  

“Sergeant Barnes,” I say as I shake his hand. He has a firm, steady grip, and his blue-gray eyes are almost hypnotic when he looks at me. I am reminded of all the stories, all the interviews from people who knew these two, back when they were young. I am reminded of the words following _James Barnes_ , before the Winter Soldier trial: handsome, charming, dashing, wonderful. I can see all those anecdotes are true, even seventy-something years into the future.

“Call me Bucky,” he says, and when he shakes his head, when he smiles, I see laugh lines. It’s one of the few true signs of age between either of these two. It strikes me that between Rogers and Barnes, it is the former weapon of Hydra, the man at the catalyst of two major conflicts, who carries the mark of joy in his eyes.

Barnes apologizes about not walking over with Rogers and I, later, as we make our way through the main exhibit halls. _Favorite Son_ is four floors above us, on the fifth floor. Rogers is leading us to the elevators, though it’s for my sake, I’m sure. There’s no doubt that the two of them could make it up to the exhibit without missing a single beat.

I tell him that it’s fine, that I’m sure that whatever important, world-saving, Hydra-killing business he had to deal with took precedent. He laughs at this. “Thanks, but it’s more like I had therapy and thought I’d get myself some donuts after.”

“Hey, that’s heroic, too,” Rogers says. This earns an eyeroll from Barnes, but from how close they’re standing, to the way he smiles and ducks his head after, it’s clear that it’s a move he does often, and a move he does with nothing but fondness.  

\---

Walking into _Favorite Son_ with Rogers and Barnes is miles apart from walking into the Captain America exhibit permanently housed in the Smithsonian. I have a feeling that this exhibit will not be popular with war-era Captain America aficionados once it opens; the focus on Steve Rogers’ time in Brooklyn is not the clean, flashy hero story that makes it into textbooks and History Channel specials. It is not the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps fable of the rugged American man. In short: _Favorite Son_ is not a Captain America exhibit. It is a Steve Rogers exhibit. And like Steve Rogers, it pulls no punches.

Rogers’ influence in shaping the narrative surrounding himself, on his own terms, is clear and constant throughout the exhibit. Many objects are donated from Rogers’ own collection—sketches from his short time at the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts, pamphlets from his time in the labor movement, matchbooks from clubs now long-defunct, among others.  

This level of involvement requires a tremendous amount of work on Rogers’ part, and even with days before the opening reception, it still seems he’s hard at work. At one point, Rogers leaves with a member of the museum staff, pulled away for official exhibit business. He looks apologetic as he does, and Barnes squeezes his hand when they part. It reminds me of puppy love, the way that they say such emotional goodbyes whenever they’ll be apart for more than fifteen minutes at a time. Then I remember that there is reason for that, reason evidenced in the very gallery I am standing in.

Barnes is still friendly without Rogers, but quieter. Timid, if a man his size could ever be described as that. He’s silent, looking around the gallery, lost in his own thoughts, before, out of nowhere, he asks me what he thinks of the exhibit. I give him my honest review: that it’s refreshing, that it’s enlightening, that it’ll piss a whole lot of people off. This seems to delight him, and he grins at this, asking that I promise him a signed copy of my review once it goes to print. I, of course, agree.

It’s my turn to ask a question, then. I ask if he had any role in consulting on the exhibit. He nods, sticking his hands in his pockets in an aww-shucks move.  

“Couldn’t leave it to Steve alone,” he says. When I ask him to elaborate on that, he gets soft and a little bit starry-eyed. “If it were just up to him? Steve wouldn’t even give himself the time of day. As much as he needs someone to tell him he’s full of shit sometimes, he needs someone to tell him when he’s _pure gold_ even more.”

And this strikes me, someone so earnest, with such a deep legacy of _good_ as Rogers, not thinking of himself in high regard. Or maybe it just spoke to the way that Barnes thought of Rogers, of the way that, even in the brief time that I spent with them, I could tell he thought of Steve as the sun and stars. Or maybe it was something in between those two equally-true facts. Whatever it may have been, it made the weight of _Favorite Son_ all the more tangible.  

\---

“How does it feel to have your own exhibit?” I ask later, as we sit on the café terrace overlooking the sculpture garden. Rogers is pressed up close against Barnes, holding a coffee with a gentleness that belies the prototypical image of “supersoldier.” He still has an artist’s hands.

There’s a tiredness over his features, an exhaustion that could be either of an afternoon or of a hundred years. Barnes, on the other hand, exudes patience—a patience that, contrary to Rogers’—very clearly comes from the experience of a long, long lifetime.

“It’s,” he starts. He takes a long pause, before he lets out a deep breath. His broad shoulders sag, but he keeps a smile on, anyway. “It’s great. Really, it’s great.”

Barnes hums. Rogers takes a delicate sip of his coffee—the first instance of _delicate_ when it came to food that I’d seen all day.

“You did a good job, bud. You did a damn good job,” Barnes says. His voice is gentle and low. It’s the same voice one would use to speak to something small, something fragile. Maybe, to Barnes, Rogers would only always be that.

There is a gentle stillness to that moment: these two war heroes, sitting in a café overlooking a sculpture park, drinking coffee in a shady patch on a balmy July day. Once more, I feel like I’m peeping through a keyhole, like I’m watching something that was far too intimate to be intended for me to see.  

 

I take that as an opportunity to take my leave. As enlightening as the day has been—and it has been quite enlightening—it was time for me to let some things remain unseen. I thank the two of them, and Rogers asks me to stay, to finish my coffee, to ask any questions I have left. Even in his emotional exhaustion, Steve Rogers doesn’t quit, doesn’t give in, so easily. Barnes waves me off, and while my nature might be a skeptical one, I swear that I can feel their energy radiating from them as I make my leave.

\---

We try to paint these men—Rogers, especially—as modern myths, as ancient, grizzled warriors, hardened with age, or as timeless, immortal, demigods in stars and stripes. And to some extent, that’s true. As I spent the day with Rogers and Barnes, I couldn’t help but notice the wisdom and experience they carried with them on their shoulders, in their eyes.

But what we too often forget about Steve Rogers and James “Call Me Bucky” Barnes is that, while they might both be in their hundreds, they are so very young, at the same time. If my time with Rogers and Barnes has shown me anything, it’s that the men we call Captain America and The Winter Soldier are just like your average thirtysomethings. They take pictures of their food. They go to therapy. They listen to audiobooks and true crime podcasts and watch tiny food videos on YouTube. They are hopelessly in love.

And if anything can be taken from the legacy of Brooklyn’s own favorite sons, I hope it’s that.

\---

_Favorite Son: Steve Rogers in Brooklyn, 1918-2012 is open at the Brooklyn Museum and will run from July 4-November 15._

**Author's Note:**

> a few things: 
> 
> \- [harold h. harold](http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Harold_Harold_\(Earth-616\)) is kate's reporter friend from the L.A. woman story arc. he probably wouldn't be a reporter for the daily bugle, a senior reporter, at that, but hey. when you need to bend things, you need to bend things.  
> \- [an indigenous peoples' history of the united states](https://smile.amazon.com/Indigenous-Peoples-History-ReVisioning-American/dp/0807057835/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1530742597&sr=8-1&keywords=an+indigenous+peoples+history+of+the+united+states) is very, very good. i highly recommend it to everyone: it's a scholarly title, but it's not a book that people outside of academia can't pick up. i actually picked it up at the strand, last time i was in new york city, lol.  
> \- not that this is too applicable to the fic itself, but the term "favorite son" comes from talking about electoral politics, but i imagine that steve would be a fan of green day's ["favorite son"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w09kT1n0J18), given that it was written explicitly against george w. bush. lmao.  
> \- all my love to the brooklyn museum. if i could just go there every day, i would. 
> 
> anyway. happy steve day, everyone. don't forget to continue working against forms of systemic violence, marginalization, and oppression. it's what steve would want us to do today.
> 
> EDIT (2018-12-29): added magazine cover image, edited by myself. i swear, i didn't write this fic initially with "steve wearing bucky's jacket to a photoshoot" in mind, it just worked out that way.


End file.
